Seeking help with Swedish phonetics

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Seeking help with Swedish phonetics

Postby wherahiko » Fri Jun 03, 2022 10:27 pm

Hello,

I'm just starting to learn Swedish. Normally I like to start by understanding the phonemes and the correspondence between letter combinations and phonemes. For my previous languages (German, Italian) it was no issue as I was trained as a classical singer and learnt to sing these languages before speaking them. But I have some questions about Swedish:

1. Is there somewhere online where I can get a summary of the various letter combinations and the associated phonemes, preferably with recordings or IPA?
2. Is Swedish phonetic to the point that I could even make this correspondence, or is it more like English in this regard?

Thank you for your help.
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Re: Seeking help with Swedish phonetics

Postby Xenops » Sat Jun 04, 2022 2:21 am

Welcome to the forum. :D I hope you will find useful info here.

What I have found helpful (but sadly does not have IPA) is the FSI's course on Swedish: https://www.livelingua.com/courses/swedish
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Re: Seeking help with Swedish phonetics

Postby tiia » Sat Jun 04, 2022 7:59 am

Hello and welcome!
wherahiko wrote:1. Is there somewhere online where I can get a summary of the various letter combinations and the associated phonemes, preferably with recordings or IPA?
2. Is Swedish phonetic to the point that I could even make this correspondence, or is it more like English in this regard?

I would say in Swedish the correspondence between letter combinations and phonemes is not as consistent as in German or Italian, but far more regular than in English. There are for sure some pronunciation guides out there for the general rules, but I don't really know them. However, there are a few words that do not follow the rules, or have a stress on a different syllable etc. After a while you will know which ones may need a double check.
I just got the recommendation to use this dictionary for such check-ups: https://svenska.se/so/ They have a recording of each word.

What resources are you using for learning Swedish right now?
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Re: Seeking help with Swedish phonetics

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Sat Jun 04, 2022 11:42 am

wherahiko wrote:1. Is there somewhere online where I can get a summary of the various letter combinations and the associated phonemes, preferably with recordings or IPA?
2. Is Swedish phonetic to the point that I could even make this correspondence, or is it more like English in this regard?


Maybe this resource is helpful:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_phonology

(Especially the vowel section. Learn them. All of them. There are nine in total. Each has short version and a long version.)
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Re: Seeking help with Swedish phonetics

Postby Dragon27 » Sat Jun 04, 2022 11:55 am

jeff_lindqvist wrote:Maybe this resource is helpful:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_phonology

It is useful, for sure, but I think that the topic starter's primary concern wasn't about phonetics and phonology (even if the word 'phonetics' is in the title), but orthography. In which case these wiki articles could be more to the point:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_orthography
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_alphabet
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Re: Seeking help with Swedish phonetics

Postby wherahiko » Tue Jun 07, 2022 7:52 am

Thank you, everyone, for the warm welcome and for your replies. There's a wealth of information in the links and it's super helpful.
jeff_lindqvist wrote:Maybe this resource is helpful:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_phonology
(Especially the vowel section. Learn them. All of them. There are nine in total. Each has short version and a long version.)

Dragon27 wrote:I think that the topic starter's primary concern wasn't about phonetics and phonology (even if the word 'phonetics' is in the title), but orthography. In which case these wiki articles could be more to the point:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_orthography
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_alphabet

It's good to know about the 9 vowels and the section on 'sound-spelling correspondences' is exactly what I was looking for. I take it from the list of vowels that there are no vowel digraphs in Swedish (i.e. two or more letters representing one sound, as in the French eu, eau, or ou, or German ie). Is that correct?
tiia wrote:What resources are you using for learning Swedish right now?

I've started with the Sweasy Lessons podcast (which focuses a lot on sound, including the rhythm and melody of Swedish speech) and will also use Mango (since it's available from my local library and is also very sound-focused). I'm also listening to a fair amount of native content (not understanding much beyond the odd word yet) to get the hang of the sound of the language. Beyond that, I will likely turn to Assimil. Other options I considered were FSI and Rivstart. I'd welcome any suggestions for resources, including content to listen to!

Thank you again everyone!
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Re: Seeking help with Swedish phonetics

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Tue Jun 07, 2022 3:57 pm

wherahiko wrote:I take it from the list of vowels that there are no vowel digraphs in Swedish (i.e. two or more letters representing one sound, as in the French eu, eau, or ou, or German ie). Is that correct?


I think that's correct. However, this doesn't mean that vowel clusters don't exist. If you see something that looks familiar, it might be a loanword (rouge, café au lait, eau-de-vie and so on). Adjective or noun endings of words ending in a vowel will result in written vowel combinations, e.g. nya/nye, sjöar, åar... In these cases, the ending is pronounced separately: ny+a/e, sjö+ar, å+ar.
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